Monday, April 14, 2014

Money Monday: Taxes and Tithing on the Secondary Market and Tax Day Deals

Are you one of the millions of Americans scrambling to get their taxes done before the 15th?

Luckily for us, my husband and I worked hard to get our things organized and we filed at the end of February this year. We have waited until April before, and it is stressful, so these past few years, we have wanted to avoid the stress and pressure and filed as early as we could.

Obviously, our tax system is complicated, confusing, and down right byzantine.

Loopholes

deductions

credits

o my...

I am so confused

I could cry.

One grey area that many Americans fail to report is additional income obtained on secondary markets. For example, did you sell something on Craigslist? A question that many of us, myself included don't ask is "Should I pay takes on that item?"

Answer: It depends on your State and Municipality.

Most states will not go out of their way to collect sales tax on income from a secondary market. Kay Bell, author of Don't Mess with Taxes says that "if an item you owned for personal use, such as a car, refrigerator, furniture, stereo, jewelry, or silverware, your gain is taxable as a capital gain. But, if that sale nets you less than you originally paid, not more, there is no gain tax.

However, if you find that your online sales become profitable and you are able to turn them into a business, then yes, you will need to begin filing taxes on those funds.

That takes us to the moral side of the argument. For Christians, they believe that you should tithe 10% of all monies to your local church. Are monies collected from the secondary market included?

A recent survey I saw said Mormon's are 90% more likely than anyone else to pay a tithe on those funds received from sales.

Interesting, no?

And finally---Tax Day Deals--- Don't forget to cash in on a few of these deals

no, i don't tithe on 2ndary income (interest and the like) but i feel as if i should. it wasn't something that crossed my mind until after i was married and Jay disagrees with me.i also tithe on gross, rather than net (and plan on not tithing if I ever get Social Security because I'm certainly not gonna make money on the deal!) which is another thing we disagree on.